


The lone hawk

by scrat38



Category: Berserk (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Griffith says NO to sacrifice, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrat38/pseuds/scrat38
Summary: Guts wanders the countryside reminiscing about loved ones and what to do after Casca dumped him in a post-non-eclipse setting.





	The lone hawk

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in a place in a parallel universe where Griffith did not chose to carry out the sacrifice for love of his companions. The story is derived from Miura's canon one, with the added exeption of a "wagon" fanfic, until guts starts running after Griffith who crashed in the lake. he doesn't see the zomby apostles and manages to sway Griffith into not sacrificing. We will follow the separate trajectories of Guts, Griffith and Casca. Casca urges Guts to leave to pursue his dream and stays behind with Griffith, both protected by the remnants of the outlawed band of the Hawk. Guts reflects here on the people he met in the past years and what his next step is to find and fulfill his own dream - for Griffith.

He nearly tripped. His wounds were healing nicely but he still did that lately. This time it was not because he was daydreaming as he walked. A falcon had flown just above his head, swerved and dived back towards him. As he raised his armoured right arm in defence, the bird diverted its course and flew back out towards the sunset. Even basked in the golden sunlight, Guts thought that the falcon looked oddly white and he couldn’t stop staring at it, stretching out his palm to shield his eyes from the blinding sun. That was when his foot hit the root. He stopped his course, alert. Brusquely turning around, he met his shadow facing right back at him. He though he saw a sunray pierce through its right eye but it was only a bright red flower, then looked beyond the shadow. All clear. But when it was that long, seemed that thin, it meant time to set camp. He looked back at his shadow. He couldn’t spot the flower anymore.  
  
He had been lost in his thoughts again and hadn’t seen the time fly by. He had to hurry and pick some twigs and logs if he didn’t want to settle in the dark. He managed to get the fire cracking before complete obscurity, lay down, cuddled against his sword and closed both eyes.  
  
Metal was cold but it was reassuring. He usually wasn’t so afraid of the night with a hand on a battle-dulled blade. It had been barely 2 weeks since he’d left the other hawks. Barely a month since he’d fallen asleep in Casca’s arms, hands resting on her warm curves and in her hair. For a change, she had escaped her duty and joined him in the back of the wagon where he was recovering from his unreal battle against the gigantic and disgusting ape-monster. How stupid had he been not to mash his skull to pulp? He could still have gotten up after the fight and ended his job, his only job before leaving with Caska: keeping Griffith and the Hawks safe. That would have ended that sick fuck and avoided more pointless deaths of hawks. He hadn’t know the men personally, they weren’t from his raiders’ crew. But he’d recognised the faces… Or what was left of them. But no, instead, he let Caska throw herself onto him, comfort and hug him, scowl at him, mend and sow him back into one piece (only to reopen the wounds later on with her sweet lovemaking) with no second thoughts about the monster that was still very much alive! And Caska, it turned out, hadn’t left with him. Instead, she had ordered him to leave, alone. She always said he was an idiot and she was right. He wasn’t new to his kind of irony, but that thread of destiny he was following had hit him hard. He had to leave her and his best friend, together, to find his “own purpose”, just when he thought he had already found it. At her side, at their side, with the hawks. But at the same time, he had to leave in order to fulfill his friend’s dream and purpose, the same friend who had also said long ago that only someone with his own dream could ever be his friend (the same friend whom she had chosen over him, Guts). The last time he had left to seek meaning to his existence, he couldn’t find a clear answer but the images of sparks and his sword would not leave his mind. How on earth was he supposed to find and pursue his own dream this time, all the while accomplishing Griffith’s? Where should he start? What is he actually going to do?!  
  
No idea. He just hoped fate, god or whatever it was that was pursuing him wouldn’t catch up. Bad omens, so many bad omens… He hated them. And monsters, and prophecies, and the king himself… Fuck the whole lot! Worse, because of him, the whole crew saw what was left of Griffith, and what was left, was not very much. How could he make it up to him?  
  
His hand moved up the straightness of the blade, up to the rounded pommel of the hawks’ departing gift to him. The coldness reminded him of Griffith’s helmet underneath his palm, as he held his limp form covered in wet and bloody bandages with the other. For the second time in .?. a long time… he had cried onto Griffith, leaning his forehead against the mask, sobbing about how sorry he was, how he never thought everything would have turned out the way it did, promising to fix everything, asking his masked friend how, and not even noticing the hoard of the undead, slowly advancing towards them. He never should had left in the first place, that much he had explained to Griffith. Griffith now knew why, but Guts felt he owed him further explanation, he owed him an answer, he had to give him a satisfying result for why he had abandoned him the first place. “I wanted to be equal … with you. I Still do. If you never saw me as your friend, I want to be that now.” He managed. Again, he asked how he could possibly make amends. Leaning his face in the smaller man’s chest, he thought he heard “my dream” in response coming from his lungs. Looking back up into the helmet, two hands gently cupped his face, as they had once, four years prior, and the two eyes looking back at him were full of assurance and a note of something that made him feel uneasy.  
What followed couldn’t possibly have been real. Well, actually, it wasn’t the first time he had witnessed marvellously crazy events happen but amazingly enough, the sun came back out from behind the moon, the band of the hawk moved out from the grasp of the party of demons, plans were made and the black dog knights seemed to have scattered back to wherever they came from.  
  
In the morning he would have sworn that he saw a fairy-bug warming itself by his camp fire in the dead of the night. These days, he didn’t know what to believe in between common sense, his eyes and body and what he thought to be physically possible and impossible.  
Stretching his back and legs, he recovered his sword and decided his first move was going to earn some money. He had spent enough time pretending to be a hermit (a hermit actually had beliefs and a religion to hold onto), missed his unusually long broadsword, had eaten enough wild rabbits and squirrels that he forgot what other food tasted like, and longed for a good old fight. He would go to Goddo for a new sword but it was out of the question to come back empty-handed after all he and Erika had done for him. He wouldn’t join another mercenary band since deep down he still though himself a Hawk but there wasn’t much else he actually knew how to do than fight, kill and survive. He’d engage in tournament fighting to get enough money to pay Goddo for a new sword and all the previous ones he broke and should have charged him for, and of course get a present for Erika.  
  
She would grow to be a great smith, he hoped, for her sake. She would always warn him about the risks of him killing himself during their training and would finish her worrying by “I want to be strong just like you when I grow up” whenever he bragged about the slim chances of him dying. However unexceptional he felt in every other field, he knew that his physical resilience, resistance and strength were extraordinary. There was close to no chance that Erika, a girl, would match him. Even Caska didn’t stand a chance against him in battle, and she was the toughest woman he had ever met. But, reflecting on this, he hadn’t met many women either, so he decided not to voice any concerns about Erika’s dream, and if that was what it was, he found a certain pride to be a part of it, even a source of inspiration. No one had ever thought highly of him, let alone admired him at that time. He was glad to have made a little friend, to have left the hawks. Or so he thought… back then! Still, if she weren’t to become a great blacksmith, she probably would be a great surgeon, if the townsfolk allowed her (a girl) to undergo a proper training (which was very unlikely). She had already shown great promise and progress mending broken ribs and cuts from his training with tree trunks. He had shared what little he knew on how to put a bone back in place.  
  
He stroked his head, trying to brush all his thoughts away and focussed on the morning scenery around him. His rumbling stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten that night. Turning south and aiming for the pass between 2 familiar mountains he inhaled deeply and made his way for the townsfolk he wasn’t much fond of.


End file.
